Monday, April 25, 2016

FBI Special Agent Cat Kavanagh is trailing a vicious
killer who stabbed each of his victims. It is more than coincidental that every
time author Bradley R. Woodbury publishes another best-selling novel, police
find a woman dead, always in the same quiet town the author had chosen as the
setting for his book.

A decorated former Army Captain, Kavanagh is tough,
cunning, and beautiful. Now, she is the bait for Woodbury’s final novel. Will
she find the killer before she, too, suffers Death by Times New Roman?

Friday, April 22, 2016

Recently
I have been getting into Science Fiction and I have really enjoyed the genre
and what it has to offer. As many of my friends know I am really big on strong
character development and a solid plot. In the past sometimes I felt that the
science fiction books focused more on the societies and their social
implications. Or at least the ones I read did. Which I feel is important but I felt the characters were flat
with no depth. It did not make the story real to me. Character development will
make or break a story. With those frustrations and feelings, I put the genre
aside. Until now. I had a couple of science fiction stories offered to me to
take a look at and I was impressed. I won’t mention those titles until later
on. I want to really expand my thoughts on those stories before I share.

Meanwhile
indiebrag has a quality selection of science fiction that I want to take a look
at. Below are three that I have added to my reading pile. I hope you take the
time to check these books out and explore what indiebrag has to offer.

Over a
remote northern forest, a small plane carrying five teenage friends’ flies into
a freak storm. Struck by lightning, the aircraft crashes and the passengers
find themselves cast into a life-changing adventure.

In a
hidden valley, a mysterious people gaze at the stormy sky as a glowing object
with fiery wings disappears behind a mountain ridge. The astonishing sight
reignites an ancient prophecy foretelling the arrival of five chosen ones
destined to become bearers of light against a dark storm gathering on
humanity’s horizon.

In a
distant city, a secretive organization led by a shadowy figure initiates a
sequence of cataclysmic events designed to wreak havoc across the planet,
beginning with a remote mining site in northern Canada.

As the
three worlds collide, unlikely heroes arise. Armed with powers entrusted to
them by the ancient prophecy and the resilience of their life-long bond, the
five teens take a stand against a malevolent foe.

When the
sun belched and the power grid failed, it was only nine meals until the end of
the world. Billy “Shep” Shepard always thought the apocalypse would come from
an asteroid with a funny name, or a super bug, or a nuclear war, or even
Yellowstone blowing its top. It came from none of those things. Instead it came
from an angry sun in the form of the biggest Coronal Mass Ejection mankind had
ever seen – and it slapped the human race back a century. In these grim times,
people kill for food, water and weapons. They scratch out a feeble existence
after “The Ejection.” But not Shep. His biggest question each day in his
underground bunker is “Cheese Ravioli, Beefaroni or SpaghettiOs?” Shep soon
discovers that nothing in this new world is guaranteed. He and Antigone, a girl
he rescues, are forced to take a perilous journey across an unyielding
landscape toward the one place rumored to be unsullied by the disaster. Along
the way they must overcome hunger, disease, desperation and death while running
from a man who wants nothing more than vengeance.

Her
latest mission is to overthrow the despot of Jaipar, General Bhandar. His
protection comes from sorcerer Samrat Condor, an interplanetary conqueror whose
space fleet destroyed Toemeka’s home planet and killed her family years ago.
And Condor isn’t about to lose his stranglehold on Jaipar.

Making
matters worse, Toemeka must preserve her cover while secretly developing an
oscillator, a shield-destroying device wanted by both sides. All this must be
accomplished under the watchful eye of her boss, Commander Rochambeau, who is
pressuring Toemeka to become his mistress.

Accompanied
by her Coalition team and trusted partner Erling Fenian, Toemeka bands with the
local underground resistance and Michio Kimes, a handsome spiritual warrior
trained to fight sorcery. Together they must battle to free the people of
Jaipar and restore its rightful heir to power.

For more great selection of B.R.A.G. Medallion Honoree Science Fiction click here

Friday, April 15, 2016

These are
some titles I recently acquired on my shelf at NetGalley to review. So many
books…So little time…But I can’t help want more!

Pub Date 12
Jul 2016

A tragedy
from the past resurfaces in this tale of family secrets and reignited love.

After her
mother's death twelve years ago, Lynette Carlisle watched her close-knit family
unravel. One by one, her four older siblings left their Nantucket home and
never returned. All seem to harbor animosity toward their father, silently
blaming him for their mother's death. Nobody will talk about that dreadful day,
and Lynette can't remember a bit of it.

But when
next-door neighbor Nicholas Cooper returns to Nantucket, he brings the past
with him. Once her brother's best friend and Lynette's first crush, Nick seems
to hiding things from her. Lynette wonders what he knows about the day her
mother died and hopes he might help her remember the things she can't.

But Nick has
no intention of telling Lynette the truth. Besides the damage it might cause
his own family, he doesn't want to risk harming the fragile friendship between
him and the woman he once thought of as a kid sister.

As their
father's failing health and financial concerns bring the Carlisle siblings
home, secrets begin to surface—secrets that will either restore their shattered
relationships or separate the siblings forever. But pulling up anchor on the
past propels them into the perfect storm, powerful enough to make them question
all they ever believed in.

Pub Date 04
Jan 2016

What if your
lover betrayed you, crowning you with sorrow? What if you were then kidnapped,
threatened with death? Brokenhearted, you almost wish that the kidnappers would
kill you. You wish your world would come to an end. Only, you slowly realize,
your world is everyone else's. This is Fernanda's story.

Fernanda
first met Randy when he and his friend Chance came to Mexico to celebrate
graduating high school. It was love at first sight. After a marvelous time
together and a single kiss, Randy smuggled Fernanda across the border, at her
request, to start a new life. But after coming to America she lost contact with
Randy. Ten years passed before he tracked her down again, and reclaimed her
heart.

They now
live in a cabin next to a quartz crystal mine in Arkansas. Fernanda has Randy's
baby, a daughter, and all seems well, if not for certain rumors on the
internet. Rumors that Fernanda is more than she appears to be. One of the
rumors says that she is actually Fernanda the Ripper, member of a
thousand-year-old Indian cult of murderers. Another rumor says the opposite,
that she is actually Fernanda the Innocent, born to be sacrificed, that she is
perhaps even the long-awaited Christian Messiah. In any event, the FBI are
involved, are watching the cabin and Fernanda's every movement. When Randy
takes Fernanda to Paris on their second honeymoon, the FBI follow.

Meanwhile
FBI agent Ed Pushkin, on loan to INTERPOL, is pursuing another case. He is told
to go to the Saint Anthony Chapel in Pittsburgh to investigate the theft of a
holy relic, a thorn from the Crown of Thorns. The investigation leads to
London, where another holy thorn has been stolen from an exquisite reliquary in
the British Museum, and a guard killed. In London Ed meets Chief Investigator
Phoebe Mullins, who has a preposterous theory that leads them to Paris, to the
Cathedral of Notre Dame, where the original Crown of Thorns is kept under lock
and key.

After a
series of events in Paris that bring the individuals involved in these two FBI
cases together, Fernanda is taken by strange men on a train to Istanbul,
followed by Ed and CI Mullins and Randy. In ancient Istanbul, formerly
Constantinople, Fernanda must make a decision that could impact not only her
baby but all mankind.

Pub Date 14
May 2009

Renée is the
concierge of a grand Parisian apartment building, home to members of the great
and the good. Over the years she has maintained her carefully constructed
persona as someone reliable but totally uncultivated, in keeping, she feels,
with society's expectations of what a concierge should be. But beneath this
façade lies the real Renée: passionate about culture and the arts, and more
knowledgeable in many ways than her employers with their outwardly successful
but emotionally void lives.

Down in her
lodge, apart from weekly visits by her one friend Manuela, Renée lives resigned
to her lonely lot with only her cat for company. Meanwhile, several floors up,
twelve-year-old Paloma Josse is determined to avoid the pampered and vacuous
future laid out for her, and decides to end her life on her thirteenth
birthday. But unknown to them both, the sudden death of one of their privileged
neighbours will dramatically alter their lives forever.

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

On a stifling August day in 2002, Alexandra Lind is thrown
several centuries backwards in time. She lands at the feet of Matthew Graham –
an escaped convict making his way home to Scotland in this the year of our
Lord, 1658.

Matthew doesn’t quite know what to make of this concussed
and injured woman who has seemingly fallen from the skies. What is she, a
witch?

Alex gawks at this tall, gaunt man with hazel eyes, dressed
in what to her mostly looks like rags. At first she thinks he might be some
sort of hermit, an oddball, but she quickly realises the odd one out is she.

Catapulted from a life of modern comfort, Alex grapples with
this new existence, further complicated by the dawning realisation that someone
from her time has followed her here – and not exactly to extend a helping hand.

Potential compensation for this brutal shift in fate comes
in the shape of Matthew – a man she should never have met, not when she was
born three centuries after him. He quickly proves himself a willing and most
capable protector, but Matthew comes with baggage of his own, and on occasion
it seems his past will see him killed. At times Alex finds it all exceedingly
exciting, longing for the structured life she used to have.

Saturday, April 9, 2016

When
brilliant FBI agent Kendra Donovan stumbles back in time and finds herself in a
19th century English castle under threat from a vicious serial killer, she
scrambles to solve the case before it takes her life—200 years before she was
even born.

Beautiful
and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to
professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her
team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely
wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to
assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates. While fleeing
from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell that
promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same place -
Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact. Mistaken for a
lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly
adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more
importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is
found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's
some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century
tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

My thoughts:

I’d like to
start off my mentioning the whole concept of time-travel story. Sometimes it
works in stories and sometimes it does not. In this story, it works and the
author gives such a brilliant and believable description of Kendra being pulled
through time. For me that was pretty intense. I could almost feel the physical
pain she was going through.

I really dig
the premise of an FBI Agent traveling through time and ending up working a case
of a 19th century murder that turns into much more. You also meet some other
great characters that race to help her solve the crimes. For starters, Rose,
Rebecca, Molly, Alec and Duke Aldridge are about the best written supporting
characters I have read in a good while. Most of all I was so fascinated with
Kendra’s process in trying to solve these murders and some of the other
characters thought process. I believe Kendra really brought that out in them
and she really got them to think outside their 19th century minds.

The killings
are graphic, there is profanity in this story. Quite a bit of it in the
beginning actually. I’m not one for profanity but I understand the scenario the
author was portraying. Intense situations cause people to react in all kinds of
ways. For many, profanity is one of them. Even though the killings are graphic,
this gives you a real sense of what the victims are going through, which makes
the story all the more intense. I think that was brilliantly done and gives you
a real understanding of that type of evil in the world.

I found this
story to be atmospheric, packed with lots of action, high-energy situations and
such intense and real emotions. I couldn’t put it down. I loved it and I hope
there will be a sequel! I’ve rated this
book four and a half stars.

Friday, April 8, 2016

TEMPEST has received this fabulous
review from Jim Stempel, the author of seven books, including Windmill Point
released in March, 2016 by Penmore Press. He has this to say:

''It is February, 1797, and the French
are up to great mischief along the southwestern coast of Wales. At Fishguard –
a sleepy fishing village featuring a small harbor where a stone fort looms
above – a force of some 1500 of the French Black Legion is rowed ashore
disguised in British uniforms, dyed dark brown for purposes of deception. Sent
by the French Directory, and led by the ex-patriot American, Colonel William
Tate, their objective is to generate a general revolt against the king’s
authority in the region. The mission’s progress, however, has been watched
closely by Major Lorn Mullone, an Irish officer in the British Army of
considerable experience, who has accurately gauged the true and sinister
purpose of the landing.

Thus begins Tempest, David Cook’s
sixth entry in his Soldier Chronicles Novella Series, and as Major Mullone
rides into Fishguard, the reader rides with him into a seething cauldron of
international intrigue, regional animosities, and personal vendetta that all
soon conjoin to explode in violence. Cook, a master of the time period, brings
this true story to life with a historian’s eye for the facts coupled with an
artist’s fine touch. His scenes of battle are gripping and accurate, just as
his descriptions of the Welch countryside – the wildlife, vegetation, and the
locals themselves – are wonderfully evocative of both time and place. Indeed,
it is Cook’s skillful juxtaposition of these disparate elements that brings
Tempest to life for the reader, ultimately vaulting this fascinating story from
the realm of mere historical fiction into that far rarer sphere of true art.
For anyone interested in a vivid and captivating tale of international intrigue
during the Napoleonic era, Tempest is highly recommended.''

David Cook has been interested in
history since his school days, and developed a love for the Napoleonic Wars era
from his father, who painted and amassed a lead model army of the Battle of
Waterloo. From there David became fascinated with The American Civil War, The
English Civil Wars and English medieval history, particularly the legend of
Robin Hood. David is writing a novel entitled The Wolfshead, a story of Robin
Hood, but based on the original medieval ballads as the source.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

The day
Aubrey Hamilton’s husband is declared dead by the state of Tennessee should
bring closure so she can move on with her life. But Aubrey doesn’t want to move
on; she wants Josh back. It’s been five years since he disappeared, since their
blissfully happy marriage—they were happy, weren’t they?—screeched to a halt
and Aubrey became the prime suspect in his disappearance. Five years of
emptiness, solitude, loneliness, questions. Why didn’t Josh show up at his
friend’s bachelor party? Was he murdered? Did he run away? And now, all this
time later, who is the mysterious yet strangely familiar figure suddenly
haunting her new life?

The element
of surprise is important in mystery thrillers. Did I get that from this book?
Find out April 12th HERE!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Beautiful
and brilliant, Kendra Donovan is a rising star at the FBI. Yet her path to
professional success hits a speed bump during a disastrous raid where half her
team is murdered, a mole in the FBI is uncovered and she herself is severely
wounded. As soon as she recovers, she goes rogue and travels to England to
assassinate the man responsible for the deaths of her teammates.

While
fleeing from an unexpected assassin herself, Kendra escapes into a stairwell
that promises sanctuary but when she stumbles out again, she is in the same
place - Aldrich Castle - but in a different time: 1815, to be exact.

Mistaken for
a lady's maid hired to help with weekend guests, Kendra is forced to quickly
adapt to the time period until she can figure out how she got there; and, more
importantly, how to get back home. However, after the body of a young girl is
found on the extensive grounds of the county estate, she starts to feel there's
some purpose to her bizarre circumstances. Stripped of her twenty-first century
tools, Kendra must use her wits alone in order to unmask a cunning madman.

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A Little Glimpse About Me

Welcome to Layered pages! I am delighted that you are here. At Layered Pages you will find all sorts of great posts. My name is Stephanie Hopkins and I have been book blogging since 2012 or there about. I was formally on the indieBRAG Team for five years and helped promote the B.R.A.G. Medallion, I was a short-list judge for the 2016 Historical Novel Society indie award. I have reviewed books for the Historical Novel Society, I review for various Publishing Houses, NetGalley and indie authors. I am an avid reader of Historical Fiction, American History, Alternate History, Non-Fiction, Crime Thrillers, and Mystery. I have several writing projects under way and I am always buried in research. When I am not pursuing my obsession of books, research, writing, chatting with fellow books lovers and authors-which is pretty much 24/7-I enjoy creating mix media art on canvas, fitness and I love the outdoors! These days I have no idea what rest is!